Read Online Secrets Of Bella Terra by Christina Dodd - Free Book Online

better this guy than me.”
    “Of course. But for all that your parents are soldiers, you are not.” He slid his arm along the step behind her back, lifted her to him, brought her close. Leaning back against the steps, he placed her body across his. “When you think about committing bloody murder, no matter how justified—you need comfort.”
    “Sure.” She tugged against him, but halfheartedly as if she didn’t quite know how to react. “But not yours.”
    “Mine more than anyone’s. Mine because I know you better than any man on earth.” He was trying to tell her he knew she was lying.
    Did she comprehend?
    He thought so, because she looked into his eyes and her blue gaze weighed him and her next move.
    No. None of that.
    He pulled her as close as he could, wrapped one hand on the back of her head, and held her still for his kiss.
    A cautious press to the corner of her mouth. To the other corner. Then full on, opening her with his tongue and tasting her for the first time and knowing this was homecoming.
    Yeah. Homecoming.
    Brooke was the woman he dreamed of every day of his life.
    Brooke was the woman he denied himself for her own good, because she wanted Bella Terra and he wanted the world.
    But for his own good, he had to kiss her. Because touching her brought back memories of necking at the far end of the orchard alongside an irrigation canal. And because she smelled like wine flowers and fertile earth, and youth and passion and true love.
    “Rafe . . .” she murmured against his lips. Lifting her head, she tried to push away.
    Yes, because this Brooke was cooler. Calmer. With none of the hero worship she’d shown him in high school. And none of the helpless compassion that had moved her in college. She was in face and form still Brooke . . . but she wasn’t his Brooke. Not anymore.
    And he, like the beast he was, wanted to break through her serenity and see for himself whether the young, exuberant Brooke still existed beneath the mask . . . or if she had become the woman she pretended to be.
    He slid one hand down to her butt and one up to the back of her neck, and with his fingertips he stroked her ear.
    She stilled.
    She was the same, at least in that respect. A caress to her earlobe hypnotized her with pleasure.
    He kissed her again, and the taste of her . . . ah, that blocked everything but the passion and sweetness and glory that was Brooke.
    She was cautious. God, so cautious. In some rational part of his brain, he completely understood why she held back. But the lustful, animal part of his brain—okay, not his brain, his dick—didn’t care. He held her with his arm across her back, her body so close against his that the layers of clothing between them were nothing but a hindrance. He knew her shape, sensed the changes that seven years had wrought, exulted in them. He probed her mouth with his tongue, swept away her cool control, brought all their old, dusty feelings into the sunshine and the new day.
    She was still motionless, as if waiting. . . .
    But he knew he’d won when she slid her fingers into his hair and kissed him back, deftly giving him as much delight as he offered, amplifying his need for possession into a thing that relentlessly clawed at him, making him imagine all the ways he could take her, here, in the sunshine on his grandmother’s front steps overlooking Bella Terra.
    He knew her so well.
    But she knew him, too, and it didn’t take psychic ability to know where his mind had gone, not as close as they were.
    So when she got her elbow between them close to his throat and pressed with increasing force, he knew no amount of ear rubbing was going to change her mind.
    “My pager’s vibrating,” she said.
    “Is that what that is?” He smiled at her. “I was hoping for something . . . different.”
    “I’ll bet. If they’re paging me now, when I’ve told them not to, it’s important. So . . . ?” She was polite and unflustered, considering he had a hard-on